


318. a born weapon

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [20]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena teaches Sarah something about firing a gun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	318. a born weapon

Sarah’s fingers shake when she wraps them around the sniper rifle. Helena moves one of Sarah’s fingers to the trigger but doesn’t press down. They’re firing on easy targets – stuffed animals, nothing with a pulse. Helena wants to say: _I had to learn on dogs and women and children_. Helena wants to say: _I want this to be easier for you._

She doesn’t say that, though. Instead she presses her lips between her teeth, watches the lines of her sister’s body and where those lines bleed into rifle-lines. Bleed into. Bleed.

“Fire,” she says quietly. Sarah does. The bullet brushes along a teddy bear’s face, like a touch, and flies away.

“ _Shit_ ,” Sarah hisses, and moves to drop the gun.

“No,” Helena says. “No. You are the gun now. Do not leave it. Try again.”

She has a pack of gum in one of the pockets and now she unwraps a piece, places it precisely in the center of her tongue. It starts to melt. Her mouth tastes cold, like winter, like the bottom of a well. She’s sitting cross-legged next to Sarah. Above them the sky is so blue it hurts; the world is blue and gold and Helena’s mouth tastes like dead winter. Somewhere, a bird calls. Sarah fires again.

This time she hits the bear’s arm. “Good,” Helena says, because she thinks you’re supposed to say that.

“Not really,” Sarah says. Helena just hums.

“No,” she says, “good.”

Sarah is a fast learner, though: she hasn’t dropped the gun. She looks down the barrel and oh, oh, Helena loves her. Sometimes Helena forgets that. But here is Sarah with Helena’s gun, squinting to see the targets Helena has laid out for her, and Helena loves her so much it hits her chest like a bullet.

Sarah wouldn’t know this if Helena wasn’t willing to teach her. Helena loves her. It hurts.

“I hate this,” Sarah says conversationally. “Hate the waiting. Hate the – I dunno. Distance?”

“Yes,” Helena says. She swallows the gum whole, continues: “And that is why you are learning. Always with the running in, _sestra_. Never with the waiting. So. Sit. Breathe. Have patience. You are the gun now. There is no need to hurry.”

Sarah fires again. Bullet in another bear’s throat. Good shot. It takes them a long time to die, that way, bleeding and choking, throat filling with blood. Sometimes you want to make a shot like that. Sometimes you want hurts to last as long as possible – so they know, so they understand.

“I’m out,” Sarah says, and she leans back from the gun. Helena hands her the box of bullets; the two of them sit in silence, as Sarah reloads. In the distance the birds are calling again. Click, click, click sings the gun as Sarah’s clumsy fingers take it apart.

“They timed me,” Helena says. “Fast fast. A little bell ringing when I should be done. Only I was not done, and then they were mad.” She tilts her head to the side and watches how slow Sarah is. So slow. Helena could pull out another rifle, assemble it, and blow Sarah’s head off before Sarah finished loading her bullets into her gun.

Oh. Helena hadn’t meant to think that. Now she can’t stop thinking it, though.

“Please don’t time me,” Sarah says. She sounds exhausted. Her head blows up over and over on the screen of Helena’s mind.

“I won’t,” Helena says quietly. “We have time. No rushings.”

The gun makes one final _click_ and Sarah is done. She finds the position easily again, the gun resting on its support, her finger curled easy on the trigger. Helena wishes her head would stop exploding, over and over, an endless wave of violent flowers.

Sarah looks at her, headshot. Then she turns back to the gun and pulls the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
